MANY VIDEOS THINK IT IS! I google youtube and get a wide variety of videos. Sports, songs, shorts, religion, history, travel, AGT, cults, ads, politics, etc. I have to click on Ray Stevens “The Mississippi Squirrel Revival”! But also there are usually videos claiming that what is going on in Iran is the fulfilling of Bible predictions from Ezekiel 38,39.

EZEKIEL 38,39 IS NOT AN ELEPHANT! I will tell you what I think Ezekiel is predicting, but first let me tell you what he is definitely not predicting. An illustration that I use is that if you are looking at a really strange small insect you might not know what it is but you definitely know that it is not an elephant! Ezekiel 38, 39 is not predicting anything past the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the Romans in 70 AD. I know that b/c of what Jesus said in Luke 21:²⁰ “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is near. ²¹ Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those who are inside the city must leave, and those who are in the country must not enter the city; ²² because these are days of punishment, so that all things which have been written will be fulfilled.” This surrounding of Jerusalem had to occur within the generation of those whom Jesus was speaking to b/c he said in Luke 21:³² Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all things take place.” The word for “generation” in the Greek is genea and in the New Testament it always means a 40 year period or the people living in a 40 year period. One usage of the word is in Matthew 1 where there are 42 “generations” from Abraham to Jesus, which covers about 2,000 years. Or Matthew 23:³⁶ Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation” where Jesus is specifically talking about that generation of wicked Jews living at the time he was speaking, predicting the judgement to come on them in 70 AD when a million evil Jews were killed by the Romans.

WHAT DID JESUS SAY ABOUT THE FULFILLMENT OF ALL OLD TESTAMENT PREDICTIONS? But notice what Jesus said: Luke 21:²² because these are days of punishment, so that all things which have been written will be fulfilled.” He is saying that all things which had been written in the Old Testament would be fulfilled by the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. That would include Ezekiel 38,39. So we might not be sure what Ezekiel 38,39 is predicting, but we can be sure that it was not predicting any event past 70 AD! That means it was not predicting what is going on in Iran right now as many claim that it is! It is not an elephant!

HERE IS WHAT I BELIEVE EZEKIEL 38,39 WAS PREDICTING TO HAPPEN IN 70 AD: So what was Ezekiel 38, 39 predicting. Here is my brief belief on that. First of all the time of the fulfillment of Ezekiel 38,39 is “in the latter years” (38:8), “in the last days” (38:16) That phrase “in the last days” used in the New Testament means the last days of the Jewish Age, the time period from 30 AD to 70 AD. The end of the Jewish Age was in 70 AD when the temple was destroyed and when the old covenant “disappeared” (Hebrews 8:13). Ezekiel is predicting a leader God of the land of Magog from the north coming to destroy God’s people Israel. He even said that former prophets had predicted all this. Ezekiel 38:¹⁷ ‘This is what the Lord God says: “Are you the one of whom I spoke in former days through My servants the prophets of Israel, who prophesied in those days for many years that I would bring you against them?” Several Od Testament prophets predicted the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD at the “end of the age” (Daniel 9,12; Zechariah 14; Isaiah 65,66). But Ezekiel also predicts that God and Magog will be destroyed, after which God will “restore the fortunes of Israel” (39:25) when “I will have poured out My Spirit on the house of Israel,” declares the Lord God (39:29). The pouring out of the Spirit on Israel is predicted by Joel (2:28-32) and Isaiah (44:3 where pouring out life giving water on the offspring of Israel is the pouring out of the Spirit). Ezekiel 37 had predicted the famous valley of dry bones where the bones come to life when God pours out His Spirit on them (37:14). This pouring out of the Spirit is fulfilled beginning in Acts 2 when Peter said that Joel’s prophecy was being fulfilled in the “last days” with the pouring out of miraculous powers on the Jews dead in Judaism who believed in Jesus as the Messiah and came to life spiritually. That would also be the “restoring of the fortunes of Israel: not restoring the physical kingdom fortunes of the whole nation, most of whom rejected Jesus, but restoring the spiritual fortunes of the remnant of Jews who did accept Jesus. It is referring to spiritual blessings in the church kingdom. So Ezekiel 38:17 is predicting that the events predicted in Ezekiel 38,39 would be fulfilled when God poured out His Spirit miraculously on the Jewish church from 30 AD to 70 AD. That would be in total harmony with Jesus’ prediction in Luke 21:22 that “all things written in the Old Testament” would be fufilled by 70 AD.

WHAT DOES THE BOOK OF REVELATION SAY ABOUT GOG AND MAGOG? One final note since Gog and Magog are mentioned in Revelation 20:⁷ When the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison, ⁸ and will come out to deceive the nations which are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together for the war; the number of them is like the sand of the seashore. ⁹ And they came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven and devoured them.” Revelation 1:1-3 and 22:6,10 says that the events predicted in the book of Revelation would happen “shortly” for the time is “near”. The book was written about 63 AD, so the events concerning God and Magog in Revelation 20:7-9 had to be fulfilled soon after that. Gog and Magog “surround the camp of the saints (i.e. Jewish people)’ and the beloved city (i.e. Jerusalem). That must be referring to the Romans surrounding Jerusalem (Luke 21:21) and destroying Jerusalem. That would happen when Satan was released at the end of the “1000 years” to get the Romans to attack Jerusalem. The 1000 years is not a literal 1000 years as most teach b/c it had to end in 70 AD when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. That means that the 1000 years must be figurative of the period from 30 AD to 70 AD, a 40 year period, the period of the last days of the Jewish Age. But did God destroy God and Magog as Ezekiel 38,39 and Revelation 20:9 predicted. Physically, no. Jesus said that his kingdom was not “of this world” (John 18:36) so the church kingdom has never been about physically destroying the Roman empire or any nation. But the evil princes who controlled Rome, and all the evil princes of all the world kingdoms, were judged in 70 AD and their powers conquered by Jesus. In that senese, God and Magog were destroyed in 70 AD (i.e. their spiritual powers). The kingdoms of the world would then become the kingdoms of the Lord and Christ would reign over his spiritual kingdom, the church, forever (Revelation 11:15). He has been reigning over that spiritual kingdom for 2,000 years now.

So I wish people would quit trying to convince others that Ezekiel 38,39 are being fulfilled in the war in Iran right now. If that was true, then Jesus was a false prophet! I feel the need to to defend Jesus’ words!